A High Court judge has returned his verdict in the libel case between former government minister Andrew Mitchell and The Sun newspaper.

Mr Mitchell was suing the paper after they ran a story which claimed he had called PC Toby Rowland at Downing Street “a pleb.”

The story resulted in the Conservative minister resigning from his job after his colleagues lost faith in him.

The judge, Mr Justice Mitting, said he was satisfied Mr Mitchell had used the word “pleb” and said PC Rowland was “not the sort of man who would have had the wit, imagination or inclination to invent on the spur of the moment an account of what a senior politician had said to him in temper".